


A Stutter in Time

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Steggy Positivity Week 2017, Steggy Positivity Week 2018, steggyweek2k17
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2018-11-06 23:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11046684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: 1945 Peggy Carter appears in Tony Stark's lab, and immediately throws a wrench into everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a one-shot for Steggy Positivity Week 2017 on Tumblr (Day 4: Modern Day), but got a little out of hand. It takes place after _The Avengers_ , but before _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_.

Tony and Bruce were still trying to understand exactly how Peggy Carter had stepped through the door of Howard Stark’s lab and ended up in Tony’s instead. There had been no warning, nothing out of the ordinary - she’d just appeared in a flash of blue light, took a staggering step forward, and thrown up spectacularly all over Tony’s shoes.

“I’m sorry,” she’d said, blinking. “I don’t - ”

They’d stared at each other for a moment, and then she’d drawn her pistol on him, and he’d suited up, the pieces of Iron Man flying together to her open-mouthed astonishment. “Who - who _are_ you?” she’d asked, finally. “Nobody has technology like this. The war would be over, one way or the other.”

“JARVIS,” said Tony, slowly, “Get Pepper to come in here. We have a situation.”

*****

Pepper insisted on calling Steve right away. “I just thought you’d want to know,” she said. “We don’t really know how she got here, or if she is who she claims she is. But she looks exactly like the picture you keep in your wallet, right down to the SSR uniform. According to her, you and the Valkyrie have been missing for a month, and the last thing she remembers is stepping into Howard Stark’s lab on an errand from a Colonel Phillips.”

Steve arrived, pale and wide-eyed, and Tony wondered for a moment if his current pair of shoes was in danger too. He took Steve by the shoulders and steered him through the door to the lounge where Peggy was sitting with Pepper, clutching a cup of tea and looking rather shell-shocked.

Pepper gently took the cup out of Peggy’s hands when she spotted Steve. He took a faltering step forward, and Peggy slowly stood up. Even Pepper could feel the magnetic pull between the two of them, and she took Tony by the arm and not-so-gently steered him out of the room. “Give them a minute,” she said, and for once Tony didn’t argue.

“She has a great-niece who’s a SHIELD agent,” said Pepper, after a moment. “Sharon Carter. We can compare their DNA. But honestly, Tony, I think it’s really her.”

****

Bruce arrived the next day, and Tony set him up in the medical lab, tasking him with running as many tests as he could think of, both to confirm Peggy’s identity and to try to figure out how the hell she’d gotten here.

“She knows things that only the two of us could possibly know,” said Steve, who’d arrived at the medical lab with Peggy that morning and didn’t seem inclined to leave anytime soon.

Peggy nodded. “We were up quite late last night comparing notes.” Steve reddened a little at that, and Peggy regarded him with a mixture of fondness, exasperation, and not-very-well-concealed desire.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Well, then, let’s think of confirming your identity as a bit of a formality. I’ll draw some blood that we can compare with a family member of yours, but we’ll mostly concentrate on figuring out what happened in Howard Stark’s lab.”

“That sounds quite reasonable.” Peggy turned to Steve. “You go do whatever it is you’re meant to do this morning,” she said firmly. “I’ll see you later on.”

He looked like he was going to object, but then gave in with a sheepish grin. “Okay. Lunch?”

“Lunch would be lovely,” she said. She squeezed his hand quickly, watched him until he’d disappeared out the door, and then turned her attention to Bruce. “Well then, shall we?” she asked, all business. “I, of course, have no doubt as to who I am, but I _am_ rather curious about how I got here, and what is likely to happen now.”

“Well,” said Bruce, picking up his StarkPad. “Let’s try to figure it out.” He smiled at her. “First of all, I need to know everything you remember about what happened. Anything could be significant, especially anything you may have seen in Howard’s lab just before the incident, and whatever you experienced during the transition.”

Peggy frowned. “I don’t really remember anything.” She looked annoyed at herself. “I walked through the doorway of Howard’s lab, and the next thing I remember I was here. But it seems unlikely that just walking through the doorway could have caused this. I must have touched something, or stepped into an experimental beam of some sort, or _something_.”

Bruce nodded. “It seems like you’ve lost the few minutes just before whatever it was that happened, uh, happened.” He made a few quick notes. “That’s not uncommon with head trauma. Did anyone check you for a concussion? You were obviously nauseated when you arrived.”

“I did feel very dizzy,” said Peggy, thoughtfully.

“Hmm,” he said. “Headache? Light sensitivity? Ringing in your ears?”

She considered. “I had a bit of a headache. It’s gone now.”

He got out his phone and checked her pupils with the flashlight. “I wish someone had thought of this yesterday,” he said. “Do you feel mentally foggy? Confused?”

“Well, everything seems rather surreal. But it’s rather a surreal situation, isn’t it?” She shrugged eloquently.

Bruce frowned. “Well, take it easy and try not to bump your head for the next couple of weeks. And let me know if you start feeling unusual in any way.”

She took a deep breath and bit her lip. “To be honest, I _am_ feeling rather unusual.” She took another breath. “But, I wasn’t feeling well before the incident, either,” she said in a rush, staring down at her hands. “I - actually, it seems increasingly likely that I’m - expecting. A - a baby.”

Bruce blinked. “Oh,” he said, eloquently.

She looked up, her expression almost defiant. “Indeed.”

“Okay,” he said, slowly, “ we should definitely check that out before we do anything else.” He rummaged around in the cupboard and handed her a clean coffee mug. “Here, we need a urine sample. Bathroom’s through that door.” he pointed.

She looked startled, but the corner of her mouth quirked up. “Please tell me you won’t serve coffee in this later.”

He grinned back. “I promise I’ll sterilize it when we’re done. Just don’t tell Pepper.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” she said, gravely. She did look pale, he thought, as she took the cup and disappeared through the bathroom door.

By the time he’d found his small stash of hCG test strips, she was already on her way back with the sample. “Here you are,” she said, handing him the mug. Bruce took it from her and set it down on the counter.

“Once we start, we’ll know in two minutes,” he said. “Are you ready?”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “That quickly?” She took a deep breath. “Well, I’ve put this off for far too long already. Go ahead.”

Bruce immersed the end of one of the test strips, laid it flat on the lab table, and set the timer on his phone. “It’s usually better not to watch,” he said.

“Like a kettle, then,” she said, and he smiled at her. He didn’t think he’d be handling it nearly as well if he’d suddenly appeared in Tony’s unimaginable future son’s lab, 70 years from now.

They sat in silence for a while. “You don’t have to answer this,” he said, tentatively, “but I’m assuming that Steve -”

She nodded. “If there is a baby, Steve is the father, yes.” She sighed. “We should have been more careful. It’s just that we had so little opportunity to be alone together, and with the war, we could never be sure that -” her voice cracked a little. She wiped away a tear. “I’m sorry. As it turns out, Steve didn’t die, but I believed he had until yesterday.”

“It’s all right,” said Bruce, handing her a tissue. “You’re completely -” he broke off as the alarm on his phone went off.

They looked at each other, and Bruce picked up the test strip. “Well?” asked Peggy.

Bruce raised his eyebrows at the two pink lines. “The first line shows that the test is working. The second means that... yes, you are almost certainly pregnant. That’s a very dark line.”

“...oh,” she said, faintly, then squared her shoulders, and blew her nose. “All right. I -” She suddenly looked very young and very lost.

He touched her shoulder. “Do you want to talk to Steve? We can continue this later.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She took a deep steadying breath as Bruce asked JARVIS to retrieve Steve. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually this weepy.”

Bruce handed her another tissue. “I think most people would be a little off-kilter after the day you’ve just had. Even without the pregnancy hormones, which are almost certainly contributing.”

Peggy stared at the test strip again, and then at the door.

“This will - well, if you decide to continue the pregnancy, this will limit the types of testing we can do on you,” said Bruce, after a moment. “Tony and I may need to rethink our strategy.” Peggy nodded, still looking a bit dazed. “Can I tell him the reason I’ve stopped for now?” he asked. “I’ll ask him to keep it confidential, although, to be honest, that’s not really Tony’s strong point.”

Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Like father, like son, I see.” She sighed. “All right. You can tell him. It’s clearly relevant to the situation.” She took a deep breath. “Do you think - is there any way you can tell if the baby is all right?”

Bruce nodded. “We can run some tests. Different ones than I’d planned.” She smiled faintly at that.

“Well, I suppose -” she broke off as Steve hurried into the lab, looking worried.

“JARVIS said you needed me back here?” He strode quickly across the room, and Peggy stood up to meet him.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Why don’t you two go get a cup of tea? I’ll talk to Tony about the tests and you can come back when you’re ready.” He tilted his head. “Actually, Peggy, I’m going to send you some instructions in a bit.” She nodded.

“It’s all right,” she said to Steve. “It’s just - we’ve discovered something, and I need to speak with you about it. Alone.” She smiled up at him and took his hand. “You might want to sit down.”

Bruce watched them walk out together, then took a deep breath and called Tony.

**********

“She’s _what?_   How did he get her pregnant already?” Tony’s eyebrows were up at his hairline. “She’s been here less than 24 hours!”

Bruce sighed. “She didn’t get pregnant last night. She got pregnant in 1945 before he was frozen. She was already pregnant when she got here. Luckily, we discovered it before we did any invasive testing.”

“Huh,” said Tony. “Cap was having a lot more fun back in World War II than I thought.”

“The point,” said Bruce, patiently, “Is that if she’s pregnant, we’ll be really limited in the testing we can do on her without risking harm to the baby. And she doesn’t have much memory of the events leading up to her arrival.” He frowned. “Actually, I think she probably has a bit of a concussion. I can’t believe nobody thought to check.”

“I’m not a doctor,” said Tony, defensively. “And I was a little busy washing puke off my shoes.”

“Well, anyway, we’re going to have to rethink our strategy.” said Bruce.

Tony nodded, tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the lab bench. He picked up the test strip. “Is this what I think it is?” Bruce nodded. “Huh,” he said, staring at the two pink lines. “Looks so innocent, but strikes so much fear into the hearts of men.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Bruce. “I don’t think Steve is going to be too upset about this.” He frowned. “Unless we figure out how to send Peggy back. Do you think we have to?”

Tony shrugged. “I think we have to figure out what happened, and then we’ll see. I mean, there are a lot of different theories about how time travel works. Maybe she -” he broke off, with a very odd look on his face.

“Bruce.” He stared at the lab bench. “Did Peggy Carter _pee_ in your coffee mug?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Peggy did make tea once they were back in Steve’s little-used suite in the Tower. Or at least, she filled the kettle and got out the tea things, and then turned to him looking a bit lost for words. Steve knew he should ask her what the hell was going on, but somehow he found himself kissing her instead.

It was meant to be a quick, comforting graze of his lips across hers, but Peggy had always preferred a more visceral sort of reassurance. She clutched at his shirt, pressing herself close with a small hungry sound, and suddenly it was easy to believe they were back in the war, sparks flaring giddily out of control during a rare moment of privacy.

It was only the whistle of the boiling kettle that brought Steve back to his senses, and Peggy made a small frustrated noise as he pulled away. They stared at each other, breathing hard, until Steve finally collected himself enough to turn off the stove and fill the teapot. Peggy leaned back against the counter, disheveled and breathless.

Steve cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to change the subject.”

The corners of Peggy’s mouth were turning up. “You were actually far more on topic than you might think. This is _exactly_ how - ” She cleared her throat. “Dr. Banner called you back to the lab because - well, I suppose our sins have finally caught up with us. We’re expecting a baby, Steve.”

Steve’s jaw dropped. Of all the things he’d been bracing himself to hear, this had... not been one of them. “We’re - _what?_ ”

Peggy nodded. “Dr. Banner seemed fairly certain.”

Steve stared at her for what felt like an eternity, and then said the only thing that came to mind. “I guess that explains why you threw up on Tony.”

Peggy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “Still quite smooth with the ladies, I see.”

“It’s been a strange 24 hours,” he said, holding out his arms, and she leaned forward and buried her face in his chest with a mildly hysterical half-laugh, half-sigh.

“This whole situation is incredibly surreal,” she said into his shirt.

He nodded. “I’m still not sure I’m actually awake.”

Peggy took in a long, slow breath. “I had thought that one day, after the war, you and I might eventually settle down and have a family,” she said finally. “But I certainly wasn’t planning to do it so soon. And in the wrong order."

“I know,” he said, drawing slow circles over her back as she sniffled a little into his shirt. “But, you know, the order doesn’t actually matter so much these days. And the war _has_ been over for quite a while, even if we both managed to miss the ending.”

Her breath puffed out in a tiny laugh. “I suppose that’s true. Although I’m still not entirely sure I won’t yet be going back to see the end of it.”

Steve didn’t want to think about that.

She sighed against his chest. “I do intend to stay the course, whether I stay here or go back” she said. “And it's not that I don't want - I just - it’s all a bit of an adjustment.” She lifted her head and blinked in the bright light of the kitchen, her eyelashes suspiciously wet. “Do you suppose the tea’s ready?”

It was. They brought their cups to the tiny kitchen table, and Peggy took a tentative sip, then a larger one. “The most unexpected things have been making me ill lately,” she said. “It’s been rather inconvenient.”

Steve set down his spoon. “Why didn’t you say anything last night?”

Peggy shrugged and stared down into her teacup. “I wasn’t certain, although it did seem increasingly likely. I just - there was so much else to - I suppose I wanted to forget my worries and just appreciate that I had you back.”

“Had anyone else noticed?” he asked, curiously. “Phillips? The Commandos? Howard?”

She shook her head. “I’m fairly certain they all thought I just wasn’t handling your death particularly well.” She set down her teacup. “I thought so too, at first.”

He squeezed her hand. “Peggy, I’m so sorry. I should have - ”

“Given me your coordinates before you crashed the Valkyrie?” she asked. “Yes, you idiot, I’m fairly certain Howard would have found you by now if you had.” She took in a shaky breath. “And if that had happened, being pregnant with Captain America’s child would still have been a _problem_ , but at least you would have been there to - ” she wiped her eyes angrily on her sleeve. “Bloody hell.”

He wasn’t sure if the last was directed at him, or at herself. “I know,” he said, quietly. “I should have given you the coordinates. I’ve lain awake so many nights wondering what would have happened if - ”

“If you weren’t such a stubborn idiot?” she asked, glaring at him. He nodded meekly, and she sighed, slumping back in her chair. “I suppose I knew you were a stubborn idiot from the start.”

This did not seem like the moment to mention her own miles-wide stubborn streak. “I kinda thought you liked that about me,” he said, instead.

Peggy gave him a tiny smile and took another sip of tea. “You have your moments, I suppose.”

They settled into a comfortable silence. “Bruce said something about sending you instructions?” Steve asked, after a few minutes.

Peggy nodded. “He’s going to do some tests to see how the baby has fared through all this.” She yawned.

“You should take a nap,” said Steve. “I’ll wake you when the instructions arrive.” She looked exhausted, although he wasn’t entirely sure if it was from the pregnancy, the time travel, or the fact that they’d both been up very late the night before. Probably all three.

Peggy set down her teacup, smiled, and took his hand. “Come tuck me in.”

**********

By early afternoon, Bruce and Tony had regrouped. “Have you ever actually used one of these on a pregnant woman?” Tony asked with interest as Bruce fiddled with the ultrasound scanner that was technically in the lab for use with soft tissue injuries.

“It’s been a while,” Bruce admitted. “I’ve delivered babies fairly recently, though.”

Tony nodded. “Right, your Mother Theresa phase.” He looked down at his StarkPad and then back up again almost immediately as the door opened to admit Steve and Peggy. “Hey, congrats, Mom and Dad!”

Steve couldn’t quite contain his smile. “Thanks.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Gotta say though, I would have bet money you were still a virgin. My whole worldview has been shaken to the core.”

“You're right, it’s certainly easy to believe he’s Howard’s son,” Peggy said to Steve, who grinned. She turned to Bruce. “All right, I’ve followed your directions, and I certainly hope you’re ready _now_ to do whatever it is that required me to drink that ridiculous amount of water.”

Bruce smiled at her and gestured at the exam table. “I’m ready when you are. You’ll need to lie down here." He looked from Peggy to Steve. "Is it all right if Tony’s in the room for this?”

Peggy settled herself onto the table. “Well, what are you going to do?”

“We’re going to take a look at your baby using reflected sound waves." He squeezed gel onto the ultrasound probe. “When you’re ready, you can roll down your waistband a few inches and push your shirt up a bit. That's all we'll need.”

Peggy blinked. “You’re going to use _sonar_ on the baby? Like it’s a U-boat?”

Bruce nodded. “Essentially, yes.”

She looked bemused. “Well, I suppose Tony can stay. It would be rather difficult to beat my first impression as far as awkward moments go.” Tony grinned at her as she rearranged her clothes at Bruce’s direction, and Steve nodded too.

“Okay, here we go” said Bruce, watching the screen as he angled the probe against her lower abdomen. She took in an uncomfortable breath. “So, the reason you had to drink so much water,” he said, watching the screen, “is that we need to use your bladder to tilt your uterus into a position where we can see - ah, here we go!”

He angled the screen towards her, and Steve leaned forward from his position at her shoulder. Bruce pointed. “There,” Bruce said, smiling. “That’s your baby. And right here,” he tapped, “That's the heart beating. Looks strong and steady.”

Steve was staring at the image in awe. Peggy blinked at the screen. “It looks like a fluttering kidney bean,” she said.

Bruce grinned. “They all do at this stage.”

“Well,” she said. She looked up at Steve, who was still watching the sonogram with fascination, and smiled. “I suppose it will be better-looking by the time it’s born.”

“I think it already looks just like you, Cap,” said Tony, leaning in to take a look. Steve sighed but didn't say anything, and all three of them watched the screen as Bruce finished up his measurements.

“All right,” said Bruce, finally, “based on the information you sent me about your menstrual cycle, you should be about nine weeks along. And, assuming that’s the case, the baby looks right on track, development-wise.”

Peggy smiled.

Bruce smiled back. “All right, I’ve got everything I need here. Whenever you’re ready.” She glanced hopefully at the bathroom door, and he nodded.

“I’m sorry, darling,” she said to Steve who was still staring at the heartbeat on the sonogram screen. “But - ”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, sorry. Go!”

They all watched the bathroom door close behind her. “Cap,” said Tony, slowly, “I hate to tell you this, but I think this almost has to be a closed time loop.”

Steve closed his eyes. “You mean she has to go back.” He didn’t sound terribly surprised.

Tony shrugged. “There’s no way to know for sure that the timeline didn’t shift somehow when she arrived, but I still remember her from when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. And I checked this morning - the older Peggy is still alive. I can’t see how all that happens without her going back to do everything she did between 1945 and now.”

Bruce frowned. “She doesn’t really seem like the type to spend almost 70 years knowing Steve's alive without tearing the whole Arctic apart looking.”

Tony shrugged. “She and my dad did look, for years after any sensible person would have given up. It’s a really big search area. And even if she had the exact coordinates where we found him, the ice would have drifted over time.”

“But the baby,” said Steve, suddenly. He turned to Bruce. “When would she have had the baby?”

Bruce looked up from where he was rummaging through his supplies of vials, needles, and rubber tubing. “Mid-November.”

Steve frowned. “But there are records of her shutting down Hydra bases with the Howling Commandos that November. And if there had been even a rumour of her having a baby that could have been mine, wouldn’t somebody have mentioned it to me? _Somebody_ should have heard something, even if it was too risqué to end up on the Captain America Adventure Hour.”

“Huh,” said Tony. He frowned too. “Well, she’s still in the first trimester. Maybe she didn’t...”

“What if she’s from a different timeline?” asked Steve.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “It’s possible." He shrugged. "We can get two of you to compare notes to make sure you both remember the same historical events.”

Peggy emerged from the bathroom. “What exactly would that mean? If I was from a different timeline?”

Tony blinked and Peggy shrugged. “You were all talking rather loudly.”

Bruce didn’t think they had been.

“I don’t know,” said Tony. “We’re still working off very little data here. But if you are from a different timeline, it’s possible that you’re here for good. Or maybe not. It’s still hard to say. And of course, the father of your baby would be a slightly different Steve.”

“Well,” said Bruce, “Testing your blood probably won’t help with that, but we _can_ compare your DNA to one of your relatives, whose DNA we already have on file because she’s a SHIELD agent. I can also run a few more tests to see how you and the baby are doing.”

Steve blinked. “Why do you have access to the SHIELD employee database?”

Tony shrugged. “If Fury didn’t want me to have access to it, he should have taken better security measures.” He raised his eyebrows. “What? Do you trust Fury?”

Peggy looked at Bruce and hopped up on the exam table. “I suspect you should just go ahead and draw the blood.” He grinned at her and tied a piece of rubber tubing around her upper arm, then proceeded to completely botch the first attempt, the needle rolling uselessly off Peggy’s vein. He had more success the second time, although the needle still seemed to resist a little.

“It’s all right,” said Peggy. “I’ve had some medical training myself, and I’m well aware that veins don’t always cooperate.” They both watched the blood rushing into the vials.

“I realize I’ve probably just given you a bruise, but how are you feeling otherwise?” asked Bruce, and she shrugged.

“I haven’t been feeling _well_ since Steve crashed the Valkyrie. And I don’t like not knowing why I’m here and whether or not it’s permanent.  But all in all, things could certainly be worse.”

Bruce set down the last vial and untied the rubber tubing from her upper arm, then pressed down on the inside of her elbow with a cotton ball as he slid the needle out. “Here, hold this down for a minute.”

“Well,” she said, “I'm glad to see some things haven’t changed.”

Bruce stowed the samples in the refrigerator and cleared up his supplies, then turned back to Peggy, who was smiling at Steve as he tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. Bruce cleared his throat. “I just need to make sure the bleeding has stopped,” he said, taking the cotton ball from her hand and peering underneath. He raised his eyebrows.

The bleeding had not only stopped, the skin was smooth and completely unbroken. “Do you normally heal this quickly?” he asked her, frowning.

Peggy shot a startled look at Steve. “No,” she said slowly, “I don’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

They all stared at each other.

“Okay,” said Bruce, carefully. “So, there are a few possibilities here, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”

Tony leaned in to get a closer look at Peggy’s arm. “But if Cap’s serum is transmissible, that seems like a problem.”

Bruce nodded. “I don’t think it’s that simple, though. You think they didn’t try transferring it through blood back in the 40s? They were trying pretty hard to recreate that serum. Believe me, I know.”

Peggy shot him a considering glance. Bruce wasn’t sure if she knew about the Other Guy or not, but she just nodded. “That was the obvious thing to try after we lost Dr. Erskine. It didn’t work.”

“And did they ever try. I think they might have extracted more of my blood after the procedure than I’d actually had in my body before,” said Steve.

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic. It was a perfectly safe amount.”

Steve grinned at her. “I was a lot smaller before.”

“I recall,” said Peggy, with a sidelong glance that gave Bruce the sudden but distinct impression that they’d been involved even before the serum. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tony, eyebrows raised.

“Well, it’s not actually blood I was thinking of for the transmission vector,” Tony said, still staring at the two of them.

Peggy sighed. “I’ve been injured plenty of times since Steve and I have been together, and I’ve always healed at a frustratingly normal rate.”

“And she still has all her scars,” put in Steve, thoughtfully.

“Are you sure?” Bruce asked Peggy, and she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse and pushed down the right shoulder to reveal two neat bullet scars at the back. After giving everyone a moment to look, she silently rebuttoned, looking thoughtful.

“Okay,” said Tony after a moment. “I know they gave out condoms like candy during the war, and I’m assuming you two aren’t idiots. So Peggy might not have actually been exposed until...” He gestured in the direction of Peggy’s midsection. "Maybe that's why you're just noticing it now."

Peggy and Steve were both bright red now. “I - they’re quite useful for keeping guns and explosives dry,” said Peggy, after a moment. “We didn’t always - it was… there was the occasional…” she trailed off. “I don’t think that’s the answer,” she said more firmly.

There was a long moment where nobody quite looked at anybody else, and Steve looked like he wanted to sink into the floor. Tony was staring at Steve with such utter astonishment that Bruce had to bring his hand up to his face to hide a completely inappropriate smile.

Peggy recovered first. “Moving on,” she said firmly, turning to Bruce, “what are the other possibilities?” She slid down to her feet and swayed a little, reaching back to steady herself on the edge of the exam table.

“Are you okay?” asked Bruce, and she nodded carefully and released her grip.

“All right,” he said. “Well, I have two theories. First of all, if you really didn’t have these abilities before you got here, it seems likely they’re related to whatever happened in Howard Stark’s lab. And we still have no idea what that was.”

“I truly wish I could remember how much of this we could blame on Howard,” said Peggy with feeling, readjusting her sleeve somewhat more vigorously than necessary.

Steve came around to lean against the exam table beside her. “It’s been less than a day,” he said, reasonably. “You might still remember.”

Peggy blew out a frustrated puff of air and turned to Bruce. “What’s the other possibility?”

“Well,” said Bruce, “Steve’s DNA was permanently altered by the serum, and the baby will have inherited some of those altered genes.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Wait, you think the baby might be causing this?”

Bruce nodded. “It’s possible. Blood cells from the fetus do cross the placenta into the mother’s bloodstream. That's why we can do prenatal screening with a blood sample from the mother.”

Peggy frowned. “But why would the baby’s blood be any different than Steve’s? We already know from Project Rebirth that blood transfusions don’t transmit the serum.”

“Well, for one thing, you’re getting a continuous infusion of it, not just a one shot deal,” said Tony, thoughtfully. “And fetal cells are different. They’re like stem cells, they can turn into anything, right?” He turned to Bruce for confirmation.

“Yes,” said Bruce. “They’ve been found in some women decades after giving birth. It’s actually not uncommon.”

Peggy was looking a little queasy. “Then,” she asked, slowly, “Would I lose the abilities after the baby was born? Or would those cells mean that this could be permanent? ”

“It’s hard to say,” said Bruce. “But Steve’s DNA was fundamentally changed when the serum was activated by the vita-rays. You’d just have bits of enhanced DNA here and there, and no vita-rays of course. So my theory is that without the continuous infusion of blood cells from the baby you’ll probably lose the abilities.” He shrugged. “ _If_ that’s the reason you have them in the first place.”

“They’ve appeared very recently, regardless,” Peggy said, slowly, thinking out loud. “I’m quite sure I would have noticed otherwise. I bruised my knuckles rather badly last week, and they certainly didn’t heal any more quickly than usual.”

Steve grinned at her. “Who did you punch?”

“Why do you immediately assume I punched somebody?” asked Peggy. Steve just looked at her, and she gave him a little grin. “I’ll tell you about it later.” Steve smiled back, and Bruce could see how much, setting everything else aside, they were enjoying simply being together.

“Have you noticed any other odd abilities, other than the ones we’ve seen today?” he asked her, after a moment.

Peggy shrugged. “Not really. An astonishingly good sense of smell, particularly for things that nauseate me.” She was still looking a bit pale.

Bruce nodded. “That _is_ something Steve got from the serum, but you’re right, it’s just as likely to be because you’re pregnant.” He peered at her. “Speaking of which, are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

She sighed. “From what I understand, nausea is perfectly normal at this stage. It comes and goes.” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll be fine.”

“Well, if you’re going to puke, please aim away from my shoes this time,” said Tony, edging away from her a little. “I really like this pair.”

Bruce frowned at him. “I’m still pretty sure that was because she got hit on the head.” He looked at Peggy. “In fact, now that we know how quickly you heal, your lack of major concussion symptoms today makes a lot more sense.”

Steve nudged her. “Maybe you should take a break.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. If necessary, the toilet is just through that door. In the meantime, if we wait until the nausea passes, we could be at an impasse for quite some time.”

There was a knock at the lab door, and Pepper poked her head in. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said, cautiously, looking from Peggy to the three men and then back again.

“To be honest, we rather needed an interruption,” Peggy said, and smiled at her. “Please, come in.”

Pepper smiled back and stepped fully into the room. “Testosterone overload?” she asked.

“Hey!” objected Tony. “I’ll have you know the only hormones involved here are… well, I guess there actually are a lot of hormones involved here. And possibly vita-rays.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow. “Do I actually _want_ to know what’s going on?”

“It would be nice if somebody did,” said Peggy, with a sigh. She pushed off the exam table and stood upright. “For those acting as nursemaids, I’m not going to be sick,” she added pointedly as she walked towards the bathroom.

Pepper raised both eyebrows as the door shut behind Peggy in what could almost, but not quite, be called a slam.

“She’s a little grumpy, and she drank like a gallon of water,” said Tony. Steve gave him a look. “Yeah, I know she can hear me,” he added with a grin.

“Okay,” said Pepper, “clearly I should have cancelled the board meeting entirely and come straight here.” She turned to Steve. “Is she okay? What did Tony do? Can I fix it?”

Steve gave her a ghost of a smile. “She’s okay. We just - there’s a lot going on.”

“I can see that,” said Pepper. “What are vita-rays?”

“Not relevant,” Tony said, then frowned and sat up straight. “Wait, maybe they are. What happened to the clothes Peggy was wearing when she got here yesterday?”

“They’re in my closet,” said Steve, also sitting up straighter. He looked at Tony. “But she’s probably wearing her watch. You want to test it for vita radiation?”

Tony nodded. “It can’t hurt. If she was exposed to any yesterday, it should still be detectable. I’d check her directly, but I’m sure she’s had a shower since then.”

“If the exposure level was high enough, a shower might not have washed away all traces,” said Bruce, slowly. “Do you have a detector?”

“I’ll have to dig through some of my dad’s old stuff,” said Tony, “But I think so. And if not, we can whip one up ourselves.”

When Peggy emerged from the bathroom, she looked slightly more cheerful, possibly at the prospect of actually getting somewhere. She held out her watch to Tony. “Please be careful with it,” she said. “It was my grandmother’s, and it was already old during the war.”

Tony nodded, strapping it around his own wrist for safekeeping. “Okay." He nodded at Bruce. "I’ll go digging for Dad’s vita-ray detector while you analyze the blood samples. We’ll regroup in a couple of hours.”

Bruce nodded. “I won’t be completely finished by then, but I should have something.”

Tony snagged his StarkPad and stood up. “In the meantime,” he asked Pepper, “could you get Peggy some saltines or ginger ale or something? She's got that pregnant puking thing going on.”

Peggy gave him a look that might have made the Other Guy pause in his tracks.

“Tony’s already told me about the baby,” Pepper confessed. “I don’t _think_ he told anyone else. Actually, there are very few people outside this room who know you’re here at all, so you’re probably safe.”

Peggy sighed. “It’s all right. I imagine it will become obvious relatively soon. However...” She looked at Tony and raised her eyebrows.

“I didn’t think keeping it quiet applied to Pepper. I tell her everything,” he said, defensively.

Pepper looked at him with fond exasperation. “I sincerely wish that were actually true.”

“Well, regardless,” said Peggy, “The idea of either ginger ale or saltines rather turns my stomach at the moment, so I don’t think they’d be terribly helpful. I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe you need hangover food, then,” said Tony, undaunted. “Something greasy and salty. French fries.”

Steve looked at him, irritated. “I don’t know if thinking about a bunch of different foods helps _you_ when you’re trying not to throw up, but generally - ”

Peggy interrupted. “Actually, I would love some chips.” She sounded a little surprised herself.

“Ha,” said Tony, snapping his fingers and grinning at Peggy. “knew it.”

**************

“Oh my God,” said Pepper, leaning back. “I honestly thought I was really good at Scrabble. This game wasn’t even _invented_ until 1948.” She looked across the lounge’s coffee table at Peggy in minor disbelief.

Steve looked like he was trying not to smile. “Peggy’s one of the SSR’s top code breakers. Guess the skills transfer.” Despite the strange uncertainty they were all under, Pepper had never seen him look as comfortable and content as he did just now, tucked against Peggy on the couch.

“Actually, being good with with crossword puzzles is one of the things used to identify potential code breakers,” Peggy said. “Or was, at least,” she added, a little doubtfully, as she reached into the bag to replace the full seven tiles she’d just used, angling her wooden rack to block them from Steve’s view.

“I think the actual decoding part is mostly done by computers now,” said Pepper.

Peggy set up her tiles and took another french fry. “And I have the strong impression that computers are machines now.”

“Yes,” said Pepper, blinking. She’d forgotten about that. “They were people back in the 40s, weren’t they? But didn’t you - ” she started to ask, sorting through her tiles and interrupting herself as she laid them down. “Triple letter score on the Q. Forty eight!”

“Nice,” said Steve, and Pepper smiled. He’d picked that up from Clint, she thought, a tiny bit of modern slang that showed he was, in fact, adjusting.

“Didn’t I what?” asked Peggy, as Pepper replenished her tiles.

Despite her curiosity, it really wasn’t fair to ask Peggy about Bletchley Park, or anything very detailed about her involvement with the war, Pepper realized. She must have signed the Official Secrets Act, and to be honest, even Pepper wasn’t sure if the recent declassification applied to Peggy, not if she was going to end up back in 1945.

“So,” she said instead, “If I’m understanding this correctly, we still have no idea how you got here, except that it might have involved vita radiation. And the only reason we think _that_ is because you suddenly seem to have some of the same enhanced abilities that Steve has.”

“That appears to be where things stand at the moment,” agreed Peggy, her mouth full.

“And the baby’s all right,” said Pepper, and Steve and Peggy both nodded.

“I suppose it was lucky I only got hit on the head,” said Peggy, swallowing her fries. “Although, Dr. Banner says the baby is well-protected behind my pelvic bone at this stage regardless.” She shook her head. “It’s still a little hard to believe.”

“The baby?” asked Pepper.

Peggy nodded. “I realize it’s the only recent development that has a perfectly obvious explanation, but it still feels terribly surreal.”

“Well, that makes sense,” said Pepper. “If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably imagined it so often that now it’s hard to believe it’s not a drill.”

Peggy nodded. “Yes, exactly. Every month, to be honest. Although I have to admit the side effects of the real thing are rather hard to ignore.”

“Well,” said Steve, looking a little uncomfortable at the turn the conversation had taken, “I’m glad the fries helped.”

“I should hope so,” said Peggy, “considering it was rather your fault I needed them in the first place.” She hid a smile at Steve’s expression. “Well, I suppose it wasn’t _entirely_ your doing.” She met his eyes, and Pepper felt suddenly very unsure of where to look until Peggy bit her lip and turned back to the Scrabble board, a smile at the corners of her lips and her cheeks noticeably flushed.

Well, it was no mystery how Peggy could be pregnant. But this was a whole new side to Steve Rogers, and Pepper honestly felt a little flabbergasted.

“Hello, hello!” said Tony, crowding into the lounge holding a cardboard box, which he set down on one of the end tables. He glanced down at the scrabble board. “Oooh, nice one. Bruce is on his way. Thinking of ordering pizza. That going to make anybody puke?” he looked pointedly at Peggy.

Peggy shrugged. “I never really know until I smell it.” She looked at Steve. “So, was Dugan right, then?”

“Yeah, pizza is everywhere these days,” said Steve, and then looked up at the sound of Bruce coming through the door.

“Hey,” said Bruce, and sat down in the empty chair, leaving the end of the couch for Tony, who ignored it in favour of pacing back and forth behind Pepper’s chair.

“So.” Tony nodded at Peggy. “Your grandmother’s watch is emitting vita rays like crazy.” He slipped it off his wrist and handed it to Steve, then reached into the cardboard box and pulled out a small black device with a dial and a curved gage.

“Was this your father’s?” asked Peggy, gesturing as he fiddled with the dial and pointed the device towards her, a few inches from her body. It beeped wildly.

He moved it away, and the beeping stopped. “Recognize it?” he asked, and Peggy and Steve both nodded. It had to be Howard Stark’s vita-ray detector, Pepper realized.

“So I was exposed to fairly large amounts of vita radiation, then,” said Peggy. She frowned. “Are you absolutely sure the baby wasn’t harmed?”

Bruce leaned forward. “Luckily, vita radiation isn’t particularly harmful, even in large doses,” he said. “And I was able to do a pretty detailed analysis. The baby has definitely inherited some of Steve’s enhancements, but everything else looks perfectly normal.” He looked up. “Do you want to know the sex?”

Peggy blinked, distracted. “You can tell?”

Bruce nodded.

“I - ” Peggy glanced at Steve, who looked about as lost as she did.

Bruce smiled. “It’s okay if you’d rather wait. Some people want to be surprised.”

“I get the impression you two were already pretty surprised,” put in Tony. Pepper narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned at her. “What?”

“I suppose,” said Peggy slowly, “the moment you find out the sex is a revelation regardless of when it happens.”

“Good point,” said Tony. “You don’t know, and then you do. Boom. Surprise.”

“All right,” said Steve after a brief but intense unspoken conversation with Peggy. He laced the fingers of his right hand through her left. “Tell us.”

Bruce looked up. “You’re sure?” They both nodded, and he grinned. “It’s a boy.” Pepper couldn’t tell what either Peggy or Steve thought of that. They’d probably kick her ass at poker too, she mused.

“Oooh, Steve Junior,” said Tony. “Thought I saw a little shield on the sonogram.”

“Good Lord,” said Peggy, “Surely if we had a daughter she’d be equally good with a shield.”

Tony nodded. “True. Keep having babies and you’ll have your own Ultimate Frisbee team.”

Peggy looked at him blankly, and Pepper kicked his ankle. “Tony. Enough.” She turned to Bruce. “Please go on.”

Tony went back to his pacing, and Bruce nodded, looking down at his StarkPad. “Okay. So, I didn’t get a chance yet to do the DNA comparison of Peggy with Sharon.”

Steve looked irritated. “You said the baby inherited some of my enhanced DNA,” he said. “Doesn’t that pretty much prove this is Peggy? I sure as hell didn’t father a baby with anyone else.”

Peggy frowned. “The US army has samples of your sperm, though.”

Steve blinked at her. “Are you saying you might not be you?”

She shook her head. “Of course I’m me. But, given the circumstances, it does make sense to find proof.”

Steve reluctantly nodded, but still looked rather rebellious.

“Well,” said Bruce, “I don’t anticipate any surprises there.” He set down the StarkPad. “But, I think I have a plausible theory about Peggy’s new abilities. As I said, the baby does seem to have inherited some of Steve’s altered DNA.” He looked up. “But, from what I can tell, Peggy's DNA has been altered too.”

Tony frowned. “Not just the isolated clusters of fetal cells?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. I think - I think the exposure to the vita radiation activated the serum in the fetal cells in Peggy’s bloodstream, and it made the leap to her own cells. She doesn’t have all Steve’s enhancements, but she has all the ones the baby’s inherited. And, since it’s now in her own DNA, it’s probably permanent.”

Peggy swallowed. “Oh.” She looked at Steve, and Pepper could see her knuckles whitening around his. They both looked rather wide-eyed.

Tony moved behind Bruce, reading over his shoulder. “So what does she - okay, she’s got the enhanced hearing and fast healing, but still has her previous scars. Can you tell from the genetics which abilities she’s got?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, I can recognize the sequences, but I don’t know what they map to. We’ll have to do some testing. See what she can do.”

Peggy was looking rather pale again, but cleared her throat. “ _She_ is right here, gentlemen,” she said firmly.

“Sorry,” said Tony. “Got excited. Science.”

Bruce looked up too. “Yes, sorry,” he said, then frowned. “Are you all right?”

Peggy nodded slowly. “It’s been a very strange 24 hours. I’ll just add it to the list.”

Tony snapped his fingers. “Speaking of which, I want to show you something.” He reached into the cardboard box and brought out a slightly dusty-looking lab notebook. “While I was digging through Dad’s stuff, I thought I’d see if I could find a record of what happened the day of the incident.”

Peggy leaned forward. “And did you?”

Tony nodded. “I think I found a whole notebook about it. So I’m wondering - do you recognize this?” He opened the notebook to its first page and held it out towards Peggy. Pepper was at an odd angle, but she could see that the page was taken up by some sort of labelled sketch.

Peggy blinked. “I - “ her eyes widened. “That was in the lab. Howard was - ” she trailed off and closed her eyes, swallowing hard as she brought her hands up to her temples.

“Peggy?” Steve turned towards her, eyes wide.

Peggy swallowed again, hard. “It’s - I’m - give me a second.” Steve frowned, but gave her space. Pepper hastily passed him the empty french fry container, but a moment later Peggy’s eyes blinked open, wide and startled.

She took a deep breath. “I remember what happened in Howard’s lab.”


	4. Chapter 4

_SSR Headquarters, London: April 9, 1945_

“You look like hell, Carter. Have you slept at all in the past month?”

“I’m fine, sir,” said Peggy, more sharply than she’d intended. She had, in fact, been sleeping far more than usual, struggling against an all-consuming lethargy that she’d at first put down to grief but was now almost certain was due to something else entirely.

Colonel Phillips sighed. “You’re allowed to take his death hard, Agent.” He sounded almost as tired as she felt. “I know he meant a lot to you. Even setting aside that flagrant breach of protocol you committed just before he jumped on the plane.” He scowled, but there was no heat behind it, and she found herself blinking away tears.

“I know, sir. But I need to work. We’re so close to ending the war. I need to know his sacrifice wasn’t in vain.” Her voice wasn’t steady at all, but Phillips nodded, and to her great relief dropped the subject.

“You’ve read the report on Stark’s latest search results,” he said, and Peggy nodded. It had been a little over a month now, and even if Steve had survived the initial crash, it seemed terribly unlikely that he was still alive. But Howard had found the Tesseract, the source of all Schmidt’s otherworldly technology, and she couldn’t help but think that the wreckage of the Valkyrie had to be somewhere nearby.

Phillips glanced down at his notes. “Stark’s still got search vessels combing the area, but in the meantime he’s brought that glowing blue time bomb back to the lab here, and he’s late with his report. I want you to go find out what he’s up to. If he’s found anything useful, I want to know about it, and if he’s doing anything stupid, I need you to stop him.”

Peggy nodded. “An entirely valid concern, sir. I’ll report back shortly.” She stood to go, steadying herself on the back of the chair as an unexpected wave of lightheadedness washed over her.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Phillips, frowning in earnest this time, and she knew she must have gone pale.

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” she said, and escaped into the corridor away from his sharp gaze, taking a steadying breath which only served to remind her of how uncomfortably tight the bustline of her uniform jacket had become in recent weeks.

She wanted to punch something. Instead, she started briskly down the corridor. She had work to do.

She was still feeling rather queasy when she arrived at the lab, but she straightened her shoulders and knocked sharply on the doorframe. Howard turned and raised his eyebrows when he saw her. “Geez, Peg, you look like death warmed over. Overdid it at the pub last night?”

“Nice to see you too, Howard.”

He grinned. “Well, of course I’m happy to see you. But you look like you’re going to lose your lunch in my wastepaper basket.”

She sighed. “I’m fine.”

He raised his eyebrows again. “If you say so,” he said. “So, what brings you here?”

She crossed the room to where he was sitting and leaned against the edge of one of the lab tables. “Phillips wants your report on the Tesseract. And I want to know what happened out there. Aside from the obvious, did you find anything that might point to where the Valkyrie ended up? It can’t be far, can it?”

Howard shook his head. “Sorry, Peg, we really didn’t find anything. I’ve got ships combing the area, but - ” he looked down at his hands. “You know the odds he’d still be alive are pretty slim at this point.”

She blinked away tears again. “I know. But I’d still like to...”

“Yeah,” he said, uncharacteristically solemn. “Me too, pal.”

They watched each other for a long moment. “Well,” she said, finally. “The Tesseract. Where is it?”

Howard brightened. “I’ve been running some tests. The thing is incredible, Peggy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Peggy gave him a stern glance. “It isn’t a toy, Howard.”

Howard grinned. “I know, but it’s so much fun to play with. Come see!” He motioned her further into the lab, to an odd, metallic box that upon further inspection seemed to be faintly glowing. “This is the containment unit I’ve rigged up.”

She peered at it doubtfully. “You’re certain it’s securely contained.”

“Absolutely,” he said cheerfully, opening the front of the case. “I’ve used incredibly strong magnetic fields. Look!”

Peggy stared at the glowing blue cube, suspended in mid-air with no visible means of support. Her stomach twisted ominously. “This is an extremely dangerous item, Howard. I’m not sure you should be - ” she broke off and swallowed, hard.

Howard hastily handed her the wastebin. “Well, you should probably avoid throwing up on it, just to be safe.” He watched her with interest, looking more amused than concerned. “I promise, it’s as safe as it can get in there. There are three redundant power sources.”

Peggy took several deep breaths and held herself very still. She was absolutely _not_ going to be sick in Howard’s wastebin. “Why do I not feel particularly reassured?” she asked, once the nausea had subsided to a manageable level.

He waved his hand. “When has one of my inventions ever failed?”

“Would you prefer me to list the incidents alphabetically, or chronologically?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

He grinned. “Those weren’t failures. Those were just things that worked a little differently than I’d expected.”

Peggy sighed. “All right. Show me what you’ve been working on. I’ll need a full report for Colonel Phillips.”

Howard seemed to have all the energy she was lacking. “All right. I started with the Hydra energy weapons. I’d been tinkering with a few the Commandos brought back, and once I had the Tesseract it was pretty easy to work out how they stored and discharged its energy. And that naturally led me to wonder what else you could do once you’d stored it. It’s not like a normal battery. It’s _weird_.”

That was what Peggy was a little afraid of. If _Howard_ thought it was weird… Howard could do strange enough things with ordinary materials, and he generally didn’t ask himself if something was a good idea before trying it out.

Howard was grinning again. “Check this out!” He handed her a small rectangular device with three knobs on it. She cautiously set down the wastebin and accepted the device. “Careful,” he said, “Don’t touch any of the knobs.”

“What does it do?” she asked warily.

He leaned forward. “This sounds a little crazy, but I’m pretty sure it’s a time machine.”

Peggy blinked. “Oh,” she said, rather inadequately. “Well, that’s - how does it work?”

“I’m still figuring that out,” Howard said, gesturing at the blackboard on the wall behind him, covered in dense figures. “But I’ve already run a preliminary test.”

Peggy closed her eyes. Phillips was going to have a fit.

“Didn’t you… invent it?” she asked carefully. “How can you not know how it works?” She looked around the lab. “I’m a little afraid to ask how you tested it.”

Howard shrugged. “Well, although I’ve figured out how to harness its energy, I haven’t really come anywhere near to understanding the Tesseract itself. So I’m sort of feeling around in the dark.”

Peggy frowned. “Then what makes you think you’ve invented a time machine?”

“Well,” he said, “It was a weird possibility that came out of one of the equations I was working out.” He gestured vaguely at the blackboard. “So, I figured I’d build it and see what happened. I just ran a quick test on my sandwich, and I’m pretty sure I sent it forward in time.”

She blinked. “Your - what?”

He shrugged. “It was the only thing in arm’s reach that was expendable. I sent it forward an hour, and it worked like a charm. No ill effects. Still tasted great.”

“You… ate it?” she asked. “You didn’t run tests on it, or perhaps try to send it back to its original time?” But of course, this was Howard. Of course he’d eaten it.

Howard waved his hand. “Of course I tested it before I ate it, I’m not an idiot. It was emitting a bunch of of vita radiation, which is harmless, and nothing else I could detect. And it was past lunchtime by then. I was hungry.”

Peggy stared at him. “How long ago did you eat it? Are you absolutely sure you’re feeling all right?” Exhausting though Howard was, he was rather valuable to the war effort and it would be quite a blow to lose him.

He grinned. “ _I_ feel fine. I’m not the one who almost upchucked all over the Tesseract a few minutes ago.”

Peggy sighed, carefully setting down the purported time machine on the bench near the containment case, and picking up her notebook. “All right, what else have you built?”

He gestured at the table along the wall beside them. “Well, I’ve put together a few things.”

The entire surface of the table was covered in odd-looking gadgets. Apparently Phillips had sent her just in time. This was going to take a while. She sighed and rolled her shoulders, stretching her neck and letting her eyes drift shut for a moment.

When she opened them, Howard was staring with interest at her chest. She raised an eyebrow. “Yes? Have I spilled something?”

“Peggy,” he said thoughtfully, “don’t get me wrong, you’ve always had amazing breasts. But they were not this big the last time I saw you.”

She glared at him. “Howard!”

Howard had never cared about being inappropriate, nor had he ever known when to shut up. “So, what happened? Did the one-armed pushups finally start paying off, or have you been stuffing tissues in your - ” he broke off and stared at her, open-mouthed. “Oh. Shit. Peggy.”

“Howard!” she said again, more sharply, and this time he actually closed his mouth. She sighed, looking down at her hands, running the pad of her thumb over a chip in her polish. “I - yes. I rather think that has to be it.”

Howard’s eyes were wide. “God, you’d think starring in all those films about the dangers of VD would have taught Steve how to use a rubber properly.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. “Well, I see you haven’t lost your knack for finding the most inappropriate thing to say in any situation,” Peggy said, blinking.

“Well, it doesn’t feel exactly like I should be congratulating you, pal.”

She sighed again. “I don’t suppose there really is a perfect thing to say.” She looked down at her hands again, and then up to meet his eye. “Howard, this has to stay quiet.”

His eyes flicked to her midsection, and she sighed again. “Yes, it will eventually become obvious. And, as I’m sure you realize, at that point I would almost certainly be sent home, effectively ending my career.”

He opened his mouth to say something, and she interrupted. “But it’s worse than that. My relationship with Steve was rather an open secret, wasn’t it?”

Howard’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. The serum.”

She nodded. “Indeed.”

Howard looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure the changes will actually be passed on to the next generation. You could make an argument either way.”

“It doesn’t actually matter, as long as certain agencies think it’s possible.” Peggy blew out a puff of air. “I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure what to do at this point. And as you’ve so astutely pointed out, I don’t have a great deal of time to mull it over.”

“Have you told Phillips?” Howard asked, slowly.

She shook her head. “You’re the first to know. And I haven’t been to - I don’t actually know for certain myself, although it seems rather -” She sighed. “I’ll have to speak with him soon.”

Howard nodded, and took a deep breath. “Do you think anyone would believe it was mine?”

Peggy blinked. “Good God, I hope not,” she said, before she had time to process what he was offering. He looked a little hurt. She sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean - it’s a very generous offer, Howard. But I think there would be too much room for doubt.”

He nodded, relieved. “Yeah, you’re right, no good. It’s pretty common knowledge you were Steve’s girl.”

Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, Peggy staring fixedly at the faintly glowing cabinet that held the Tesseract, and Howard absently flipping his pencil between his fingers. “I could get you a herbal mixture that might - ” he began, tentatively, and Peggy shook her head.

“No. I’ve - ” her voice broke, “I’ve lost Steve.” The tears were coming now, and she didn’t have the energy to stop them. “But this is a tiny piece of him that - despite everything - I -  ” she took the dubiously clean handkerchief Howard was holding out, blurred through tears, and then accepted his offered hug too, sobbing fiercely into his shoulder for several long minutes. Eventually she took a deep, shuddering breath. “Bloody fucking hell, Howard. If anyone ever finds out this happened, you _will_ regret it.”

Howard shrugged, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’d be no good for my reputation if anyone found out I had you sobbing in my arms and didn’t even try to cop a feel.”

She pulled back and blew her nose rather noisily. “Well, I truly appreciate both your friendship and your uncharacteristic bout of self control.”

“I’ve seen you take down four Hydra agents, on your own, unarmed. And then there was the time you shot Steve. I know better than to try anything with you.”

She sighed. “That shouldn’t really be the reason.”

“Peg,” he said. “You know I’m here if you need anything - money, someplace to hide out - anything. And I’m pretty sure you also know Phillips isn’t going to risk Hydra getting their hands on you, _or_ on a potential sample of the serum. He’s not going to be happy, but he’s not going to hang you out to dry either. You have to talk to him. Make a plan while you still have a bit of time.”

She nodded. “I know. I - I suppose I’ve been delaying the moment when he makes it abundantly clear just how disappointed he is in my judgement. In our judgement. And he’s right. This is a war. Steve and I should have been channeling all our energy into fighting, not - ”

Howard shook his head. “A war is the perfect time to channel your energy into reaffirming you’re still alive, Peg. Carpe diem. Deep down, you can’t really tell me you regret it.”

Peggy smiled. “No. No, you’re right. I don’t. Not nearly as much as I would have regretted not having done it.”

“See?” he shot her a wicked grin. “A little fondue is good for the soul.”

She snorted. “Wanker.”

Howard raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you’d just stuck with that, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, now would you?”

“Shall we get back to the subject of the Tesseract?” Peggy asked, demurely.

*********

They were only halfway through their inventory when she heard the sound of the door closing quietly. She spun, one hand automatically going to her weapon.

She didn’t recognize the lieutenant who stood with his back to the door, pointing a small Hydra energy weapon at them. “Can I help you?” asked Howard from behind her.

“You can hand over the Tesseract,” the lieutenant said, and she could hear the faintest hint of a German accent below his near-perfect English. “We know you’ve recovered it.”

Howard’s eyes must have darted towards the open containment case, because the man moved swiftly towards it. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, we also found that magnetic containment was the best way to maintain...”

Peggy stopped listening. He’d made the rather common mistake of underestimating her, of briefly turning his back with the assumption that Howard was the greater threat. She re-holstered her pistol, gauged distance, and sprang at him, twisting his arm behind his back and disarming him easily. Keeping a firm grip on his arm, she tossed his weapon to Howard, who grabbed for it too late and fumbled it straight into the containment case. It hit the Tesseract and disappeared in a flash of blue light.

Peggy blinked, and the Hydra operative took advantage of the opportunity to twist out of her grip. He reached out blindly and closed his hand around the closest object, slamming it into the back of Peggy’s head, hard.

“I wouldn’t - ” Howard began, but it was too late. Peggy staggered forward, gagging and seeing stars, and there was a high-pitched shimmering sound as the object in the Hydra operative’s hand began to emit a blue beam of light. The time machine, Peggy realized dimly. “Turn it off, you idiot!” Howard called. “You don’t have any idea what it does!”

Peggy struggled to stay upright. The blue beam swept across her and she thought she must be seeing double, because as the room started to shimmer she caught a glimpse of herself, retching violently over Howard’s wastebin as Howard reached across her back for the weapon holstered at her waist. Everything seemed very far away as Howard spun and fired at the Hydra operative, and then the room disappeared entirely with a flash.

She took a single staggering step, blinked at the stranger who was standing in front of her, then doubled over and emptied the contents of her stomach rather spectacularly all over his shoes. Where had she - what had - the last thing she remembered was walking into Howard’s lab, ready to ask him about… something. Something Phillips wanted to know. She stood up slowly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking, the room still spinning a little. “I don’t - ”

She stared at the man whose shoes she’d just ruined. He looked a little like Howard, but she’d never seen him before in her life, and she certainly wasn’t in Howard’s lab any longer. She drew her pistol, then stared open-mouthed as a suit of metallic red armour flew through the air part by part and assembled itself around him.

“Who - who _are_ you?” she asked, finally. “Nobody has technology like this. The war would be over, one way or the other.”

“JARVIS,” said the man, slowly, staring at her. “Get Pepper to come in here. We have a situation.”


	5. Chapter 5

Everyone stared at Peggy, and she blinked back. 

“It was this, right?” asked Tony with barely contained excitement, pointing at the drawing in the notebook. “This… this time machine my dad apparently built. Which obviously works, or you wouldn’t be here. God, why did he never tell anybody about this? It’s not even in any of the most classified SHIELD databases.”

“Which you probably shouldn’t be rooting around in,” said Peggy, a little severely. “But yes. He’d recovered the Tesseract during his search for Steve, and - ” her voice broke a little and she took a steadying breath, looking rather frustrated with herself. Steve slid an arm around her as she accepted a tissue from Pepper. “He’d been experimenting with it.”

Tony nodded. “I read his notes. He’s lucky he didn’t blow up London.”

Peggy blew her nose. “Indeed. That was what Colonel Phillips was afraid of, and with good reason. By the time I got there, your father had already built an astonishing number of gadgets, including the time machine.” Over Peggy’s head, Steve and Pepper shared a rueful glance. Pepper had never met Howard Stark, but Tony was clearly a lot more like his father than he’d like to admit. 

“So, what happened?” asked Bruce, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m assuming Howard didn’t send you here on purpose.”

Peggy shook her head. “No, it was an accident. There was a fight with a Hydra agent, and - ”

Steve looked startled. “In Howard’s lab? At headquarters in London?”

She frowned. “Yes, it was a rather serious security breach.” She tapped her fingers thoughtfully and frowned again. “At any rate, he’d come for the Tesseract. I managed to disarm him, but he wrestled free and used the time machine as a convenient blunt object to the back of my head. I suppose it got turned on somehow, because it began to emit a blue beam of light and I got caught up in it.”

Tony closed the notebook. “Do you remember anything about what happened during the actual time travel? How did it feel? Could you see anything?”

Peggy frowned. “It was all very confusing. I was a little rattled from the blow to my head, and I - I could see myself. A short distance away, bent over the waste bin. Howard was reaching for my pistol. And then - there was a flash, and I was here, in Tony’s lab.” She turned to him. “I’m sorry about your shoes. I was - ”

Tony waved his hands dismissively. “Not the first pair of my shoes that’s been ruined that way.”

Bruce leaned forward again. “So, there were two of you,” he said, slowly. “You saw yourself.”

Peggy nodded. “I - yes. It wasn’t a reflection. I was standing, and I could see myself crouched at the waste bin, next to Howard.” She frowned. “Did I… were there actually two of me? Or was I seeing things because of the blow to my head?” She looked like she wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Well,” said Tony, flipping through the notebook, “my dad saw two of you too, just for a second. His theory was that a long enough attempted time jump might cause significant quantum interference, set up some kind of feedback loop so that you were briefly in two places at once. And then the wave function collapsed and there was only one of you again.”

Peggy frowned. “But, instead, somehow, one of me travelled here, and the other… stayed there?”

“Maybe,” said Tony. “According to Dad’s theory, there was a small but unlikely possibility that the other version of you had actually travelled forward in time.” He shrugged. “But, improbable as it is, here you are.” 

Steve sat up a bit straighter. “So, hold on, if there’s already another Peggy in 1945, then this Peggy can’t really go back, can she?” He looked so hopeful that Pepper held her breath, waiting for one of the scientists to answer. 

Tony looked away. “I don’t know. We’re going to need food.” He raised his voice. “JARVIS, the regular pizza order, please. Enough for everyone. And something for Peggy. What do you want, pickles?”

Peggy gave him a rather horrified look. “On a pizza?” 

“I don’t know!” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to be craving pickles?”

Peggy shared an eloquent look with Pepper, and sighed. “What I really need right now is a stiff drink.”

“I can absolutely understand that, but I’m pretty sure you can’t,” said Tony.

“I know. Dr. Banner mentioned it.” Peggy sighed, and Pepper realized, startled, that medical advice against drinking in pregnancy was completely new to Peggy. God, she probably smoked too. Did she smoke? Steve didn’t, but then, he was Steve.

“All right, JARVIS, just the regular order,” said Tony. He hesitated as he turned back to Peggy and Steve. “Okay, so here’s the thing. It’s also possible the other Peggy you saw was actually you returning back to then from now. The incoming and outgoing versions of you briefly overlapping.”

Steve deflated a little, and Peggy laced her fingers through his and frowned thoughtfully. “But wouldn’t I have told Howard what had happened in that case?”

“You would have if you could have,” agreed Tony. “But it’s also possible that you can’t actually send information back in time, which would mean you’d have no memory of your trip here.”

“So,” said Bruce, slowly, “We just need to figure out which it is.”

Peggy looked at him, her knuckles whitening a little on Steve’s hand. “What does it mean if there really are two of me?” she asked, slowly. “Which one would be real?”

Bruce scratched his chin. “I don’t think it’s a situation where one of you is the original and one’s a copy. I think you’d be truly identical. There’d just be two of you. Like, like identical twins who have exactly the same life experience up to a certain point.”

Peggy nodded slowly. “All right. And - if there’s only one of me, and I’m going back, it must be soon, mustn’t it?” She took a deep breath and looked at Tony. “Or, did Howard mention that I'd... expanded during the incident?”

Tony shook his head. “No. But, if you stay here a bit longer and have the baby before going back, maybe that’s why there’s no record of you giving birth in 1945.”

Peggy stared at Tony, then muttered a long string of impressively indecorous words. “Bloody Nora, Stark! You and your father are meant to be geniuses, although I occasionally have my doubts about your father. Surely you can figure this out.” She glared at him. “Does his notebook say what happened after the incident?”

Tony nodded. “Dad shot the Hydra agent, but you couldn’t get to him before he got to his cyanide capsule. You had a pretty decent concussion, although he put an asterisk next to that, for reasons I think we can guess. The SSR confiscated the Tesseract, and dad spent like, 60 more pages trying to work out the math of what happened. But he was missing data.”

Peggy stared at him. “Well, don’t you have more data now? You know the time travel did actually happen. Did JARVIS record anything when I arrived?”

“Yeah,” said Tony, “And I’m still working out the math, but I’m not sure if it’s going to help.” He passed his StarkPad to Bruce. “Here, take a look at this.”

Bruce took the tablet. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I think we know the source of the resonance at this end. You must have the time machine in with Howard’s stuff somewhere, right?”

Tony blinked. “Huh.” 

************

Peggy had somehow fallen asleep on Steve’s shoulder, half a slice of pizza clutched in her hand. As Steve gently pulled it from her fingers and set it down on her plate, Pepper wondered if she ought to give the two of them some privacy. Just as she was about to get up, though, Steve looked over at her, bleakness warring with hope in his eyes. “What do you figure the odds are they have enough data this time?”

Pepper shook her head, both to the question he’d asked and to the one he hadn’t. “God, Steve, I don’t know. I can’t even imagine what this must be like for you two.” She reached over and squeezed his knee, then looked over at Peggy. “How on earth is she asleep right now?” she asked, the corners of her mouth tugging upward. “I mean, yes, I know it’s been a long day and she’s pregnant, but  _ I’m _ dying of suspense here and I’m just a bystander.”

Steve looked down at Peggy, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. “She never has trouble sleeping. I’ve seen her sleep about fifteen feet off the ground in a tree, in the luggage rack of a moving jeep on the way to the front, and once in full paratrooper gear over occupied France. We had to wake her up to jump.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow. Most people might look at Steve and see straight-arrow, goodie two-shoes Captain America, but she knew him a little better than that. He was perfectly capable of pulling her leg with an absolutely straight face, although he didn’t seem in much of a joking mood at the moment.

Steve half-shrugged with the shoulder Peggy wasn’t sleeping on, and she shifted a little, burrowing closer into his side. “She says it’s only practical to rest while you have the chance,” he said, still smiling a little. “If I still had my sketchbook from the war, I could show you her sleeping in all sorts of places.” 

Pepper considered, happy to turn her focus to a problem she might actually be able to solve. “The Smithsonian might have it. You know they’re putting together that exhibit.”

He sighed, looking back up at her. “Yeah. It might be there.”

“You could ask for it back,” she said. “I’m pretty sure returning from the dead means you get your stuff back too, if you want it. You got your back pay, didn’t you? And something like a sketchbook can be pretty personal.” Her eyes widened. “God, Steve, how artistic are those sketches?”

The corner of his lip twitched a little. “She’s fully clothed in all of them. We weren’t dumb enough to leave evidence  _ that  _ obvious...” he trailed off, looking at Peggy again. “Well, then again, I guess we were, weren’t we?”

Pepper glanced at Peggy’s midsection, rising and falling steadily as she slept. “It looks like she managed to cover up the evidence pretty well. There really doesn’t seem to have been even the slightest rumour that you left behind a child.”

He looked worried. “I know, but I don’t know what that means. Maybe she’s going to have the baby here and then go back, but otherwise there should have been a baby. Peggy’s a really good spy, but that’s a tough thing to hide for 9 months.”

Pepper nodded slowly. “So either this means she  _ will _ have to go back, without the baby, or - ”

He was worrying away at a loose thread on the knee of his pants. “Or I left some version of her to deal with this alone. It would be bad enough just leaving her pregnant, but a whole lot of people would have been chomping at the bit to get access to a baby who might have the serum in his blood.”

They both looked at Peggy. “Maybe…” Pepper didn’t want to say it. “Maybe something happened. A miscarriage, or -  maybe that’s why there isn’t any - ”

Steve tugged a little too hard at the thread and opened a hole at his knee. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They both looked at the tear. “Or maybe,” said Pepper, “maybe she figured out a way. I mean, Peggy Carter is a legend. If anyone could figure out how to secretly have a baby and fight Hydra at the same time, it’s probably her.”

“Yeah,” he said again, a faint smile in his voice. “If anyone could do it, Peggy could.” He looked up at Pepper, but didn’t quite meet her eye. “I guess we just have to wait and see.”

They sat together quietly, listening to Peggy’s even breathing, until the door to the lounge burst open to admit Tony and Bruce, both smiling widely. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” said Tony, almost bouncing. “We’ve got news!” Peggy stirred, but didn’t wake up, and Tony peered down at her. “Wow, she’s really out.”

“First trimester,” said Bruce, absently, and Pepper and Steve shared a tiny smile.

“Should I wake her?” asked Steve.

“Yeah,” said Tony, not even trying to fight a grin. “She’ll probably want to be awake for this.” Pepper raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her a gleeful look in return that made her want very much to get up and kiss him.

“Hey,” Steve said, shaking Peggy’s arm a little. She swatted him away. “Peggy!’ he said, a little more loudly. “Bruce and Tony are back. You need to wake up.” She didn’t move. He sighed. “Agent Carter. Report!”

“You still can’t give me orders, Rogers,” she muttered distractedly, then opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. “Oh. Oh!” She turned to Bruce and Tony, looking suddenly wide awake. “Well?”

Tony grinned. “Bruce was right about the time machine being in my lab all along. That’s why you arrived here in New York, even though you were in London when you left 1945. And, we were able to calculate the resonance between the two versions of the machine. By the way, it’s a little unsettling to find out I’ve had a fucking  _ time machine _ in my lab all this time.”

“Especially one whose battery is at almost full charge with energy from the Tesseract,” put in Bruce.

“Yes,” said Peggy, “I can see that. But if we could go back for just a moment to the resonance and what you learned from it?”

“Oh, right,” said Tony. He grinned. “Looks like we’re stuck with you, Peg. And vice versa, I guess.”

Steve let out a breath, and Peggy turned to him, and suddenly Pepper felt the need to look away and clear her throat. When she looked back, Peggy was wiping away tears. “Bloody hell, I hate being pregnant,” she sniffed, but she was smiling, and so was Steve. 

Pepper stood up firmly. “This seems like an excellent time to bring you two up to date on the deal with Retina Corp,” she said, steering Tony and Bruce towards the door. Bruce opened his mouth as if to protest that he had nothing to do with Retina Corp, but closed it again as Pepper tightened her grip on his elbow.

“Oh, don’t leave on our account,” said Peggy, standing too. “It’s been a rather long day and I’m completely knackered. It’s high time for me to turn in for the night.” She was still looking at Steve as she said it, and the almost-visible electricity crackling between the two of them made Pepper feel more than a little warm herself. 

“I’ll come with you,” said Steve, casually, as if anyone had thought he might be going to do anything else.

Tony grinned at Pepper as they watched the two of them leave, hand in hand. “You know, if you’d told me two days ago I’d be betting even money that Steve Rogers was about to have really hot sex with a pregnant lady in the elevator, I’d have said you were crazy. But here we are.”

Bruce sighed, sat down on the couch, and reached for a slice of cold pizza. “You don’t think the time travel part is just a little crazier?” 

“Naw,” said Tony. “That kind of thing is just par for the course around here.”

***************

Peggy let go of Steve’s hand, slipping her arm around his waist with a slight detour over his backside. He slid an arm around her shoulder, running his thumb in slow circles over her collarbone. “So how tired are you?” he asked.

She laughed, a little breathless. “I’ve been constantly exhausted since you crashed that bloody plane, Rogers, although, as it turns out, for mostly unrelated reasons.” The elevator doors slid open, and she leaned up and breathed into his ear. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to push through, for the proper incentive.” 

They stepped into the elevator and she pressed the button for their floor, then looked up at him through her lashes, ruining the effect a little by bringing her hand up to stifle a yawn.

Steve brushed his fingers along her jawline. “We can just go to sleep if you need to. I don’t know if I really believe you’re not just going to disappear back into 1945, but if Tony’s right, we’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Well,” she said, matter-of-factly, “I  _ have _ just had a nap.”

Steve grinned and bent down to kiss her.

They were both rather disheveled by the time the elevator reached their floor, although they did manage to get all the way to Steve’s bedroom before any clothing came off.

*************

Tony and Pepper had left Bruce in the lounge with the pizza and headed up to their own living area shortly after Peggy and Steve had gone. Pepper wasn’t sure if Tony had been turned on by the idea of elevator sex, was happy he hadn’t had to deliver bad news, or was just excited about the prospect of tinkering with an honest-to-God time machine, but, in any case, she really wasn’t complaining.

“I’m so glad I have you,” she confessed into his bare chest some time later. “You and I are very lucky, you know.”

“I’m lucky,” said Tony, fingers stroking her hair. “I’m still not entirely sure  _ you  _ didn’t get hit on the head at some point and just haven’t come to your senses yet.” He ran a finger along her spine.

She shivered. “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, a little more breathlessly than she’d intended. “But then other times you - oh God, Tony. Do that again.”

“So this is one of the other times?” he grinned, rolling her over, and she thought she heard her phone chime, and Tony’s too, but she couldn’t particularly bring herself to care at the moment.

Some time later, JARVIS cleared his throat. “You have a message from Dr. Banner.”

Tony and Pepper exchanged a look. “Okay, let's hear it,” said Tony, as Pepper pulled the sheets up over them in what even she realized was a ridiculous gesture. 

Bruce sounded odd. “Hey guys, I’m sorry to interrupt your - sleep, or whatever it is you’re uh - ” he cleared his throat and tried again. “I just - guys, I’m pretty sure I just figured out what happened to the other Peggy’s baby.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I was absolutely inspired by [#ConkedOutCarter](https://imgur.com/gallery/6xtWQ) when describing Peggy's ability to sleep anywhere.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce and Tony were deep into a discussion about the implications of owning a working time machine when Peggy knocked on the door frame of the lab, Steve behind her. They both looked a little anxious, and Bruce could well imagine that they’d had enough surprises for one week.

“Come in,” said Bruce, smiling at them. They came over, Peggy looking more queasy than anxious at close range. She leaned against the lab bench next to Bruce and took a quiet, measured breath.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “Need a barf bucket?”

“I’m fine,” said Peggy, in a tone that made it clear that the subject was not up for further discussion. Tony shrugged.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Okay, so now that Steve and Peggy are here, let’s get back to our earlier discussion.” He looked pointedly at Tony’s StarkPad, and Tony sighed and set it down. Bruce looked around at them all. “So, I was at loose ends last night, and I ran that DNA comparison between Peggy and her great-niece. It wasn’t really necessary at this point, but...”

“Wait,” said Peggy, frowning. “I had only one sibling, my brother Michael, and he was - ” she somehow managed to look both wistful and supremely annoyed with herself for tearing up so easily. “He was killed in action. There weren’t any... there weren’t any children. So how could I have a great-niece?” Steve squeezed her hand. “My God,” she said suddenly, straightening and staring between Bruce and Tony. “Did Michael - ”

“...follow in the family tradition and sow his wild oats during the war?” asked Tony, eyebrows raised.

Peggy stared at him. “I was going to ask if he’d survived after all,” she said, slowly. “There was no body. He was listed as missing, presumed dead, although we’d rather given up hope after five years.” She frowned. “Although, I admit, I hadn’t considered the possibility of an illegitimate child.”

Steve cleared his throat. “Could we still be dealing with two different timelines?” he asked.

“No, the resonance between the two time machines could only happen in the same local universe,” said Tony. “But it doesn’t matter, because - ”

Bruce interrupted. “The thing is, Peggy, your first reaction was right. I checked three times. Sharon Carter isn’t your great-niece.”

Steve moved imperceptibly closer to Peggy as if afraid she was going to be snatched away, and she leaned a little towards him as well. “But,” he said, almost angrily, “You said she - ”

“She’s your granddaughter.”

Peggy and Steve shared a startled glance, and then Steve reached out quickly to steady her by the elbow. Bruce hastily rolled over a spare chair, and Steve watched worriedly as she sat, rather ungracefully, her face paler than Bruce would have thought possible.

“Peggy?” Steve asked worriedly, pulling over a chair from across the aisle and sitting down himself. She held up a warning hand, holding herself very still. Tony leaned over and set the garbage can down next to her.

“Sorry,” said Bruce, “In hindsight, I probably should have made both of you sit down first.” Peggy swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

Tony peered at Peggy curiously. “You still with us?”

“Yes. I - ” she opened her eyes. “Yes, I’m all right.” She took another deep breath and gave him a tiny, rueful smile. “I assure you, I’m not usually prone to swooning at unexpected news.”

Steve grinned at her. “Unlike Dum Dum.”

The corner of her mouth turned up. “That was one time, and he was drunk off his arse. And it wasn’t a swoon, it was too much bourbon and coincidental timing.”

Steve reached over to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “To be fair, the root cause of what happened just now was likely also too much bourbon and unfortunate timing,” he said, his voice low. She huffed out a tiny laugh and pressed her cheek into his hand.

“TMI!” coughed Tony, loudly. Peggy gave him a strange look, while Steve turned a little red. Bruce got the impression that he’d momentarily forgotten the other two were there.

“Have you eaten anything this morning?” Bruce asked Peggy.

She shook her head. “No. I’ve been on the verge of being sick since I woke up.”

He dug through his odds and ends drawer and extracted a bag of potato chips. “Unfortunately, you have to try to eat anyway,” he said. “If you can keep these down they’ll probably help settle your stomach.” She sighed, accepted a chip, and took a careful, tentative nibble.

Tony was watching the scene with interest. “So, any idea how this came about?” he asked Peggy, reaching over and snagging a handful of chips from the bag.

Peggy gave him an odd look. “Well, you see, when two grown-ups love each other very much, they sometimes - ”

Steve snorted, and Tony rolled his eyes. “I know why you almost puked on my shoes again. I want to know what you think happened with the other baby. The one your double apparently managed to pass off as her own nephew.”

Peggy ate two more chips, slowly, thoughtfully. She already looked quite a bit less pale. “Well,” she said finally, “My brother didn’t have children, but he _was_ married. I suppose she must have made some sort of arrangement with his widow, Evelyn. But...”

Steve frowned. “But your brother died in 1940.”

“Yes,” said Peggy. “Which would seem to make it obvious to even the dullest observer than a child born in 1945 couldn’t possibly be his.”

Tony nodded. “And how the hell did she manage to stay on as an active SSR agent without anyone noticing she was pregnant? She must have been pretty confident nobody suspected anything, or she never would have left the baby with a close relative like that.”

“Germany surrendered in early May,” said Steve, thoughtfully, his eyes on Peggy’s still-flat midsection. “That’s what, a month after the incident in the lab? If she wasn’t showing by then - ”

Tony shook his head. “Pepper did some digging. There are records of her going on clean-up missions with the Howling Commandos right through the end of November, when she transferred to the SSR office in New York. The baby should have been _born_ in November. There’s no way she wasn’t showing by then.”

Bruce shrugged. “Well, the DNA evidence is pretty clear. Sharon’s a full 25% match with both of them.” He gestured to the screen of his StarkPad. “Also, right here, this is a bit of the enhanced DNA from the serum. That has to be from Steve.”

There was a short silence as they all absorbed that. “Can we meet her?” asked Peggy, finally. “You said she’s a SHIELD agent?”

Tony nodded. “I can get Pepper to give her a shout, set something up.” He raised an eyebrow, “We should probably have a chat with her anyway, if she’s running around with serum enhancements.”

“She doesn’t have a lot of them,” said Bruce, “and I haven’t mapped the genes yet. She might just have excellent hearing, or never get colds.” He shrugged. “It’s possible she has no idea.”

“Well, either way, maybe she has some illuminating family stories,” said Tony, reaching over and snagging another chip. Peggy pointedly moved the bag out of his reach, and Bruce grinned. She was clearly feeling better.

“What would you have done?” Bruce asked her, curiously. “If you hadn’t ended up here?”

“I…. I don’t know,” said Peggy, swallowing a mouthful of chips. “I was still clinging to the increasingly faint hope that I was mistaken about the whole thing.” She looked thoughtful. “Howard Stark gallantly offered to fall on his sword for me. But I turned him down. It never would have worked.”

Steve and Tony both spoke at the same time. “You told _Howard_ \- ”

“My dad _what?”_

Peggy rolled her eyes. “He worked it out for himself, shortly before the Hydra agent turned up in the lab.” Her lips twitched. “Please don’t ask how. And for God’s sake, Steven Grant Rogers, there’s no need for a repetition of the fondue incident. Howard and I would have killed each other within a month, and nobody would have believed it was his baby anyway. You and I were... rather an open secret.” 

Bruce couldn’t decide if he was curious about the fondue incident or really didn’t want to know.

Tony shook his head. “Man, it’s hard to imagine my dad putting himself out like that for anyone.”

“Your father could be an unmitigated ass,” said Peggy, “but he was a good man, and a very good friend.” She looked thoughtful. “He offered me anything I might need - money, transport, someplace to hide away. I rather think I might have taken him up on that, for the baby’s sake.”

Steve frowned. “But I still don’t see how - ”

“I know,” said Peggy, frowning too. “It all seems rather unlikely, doesn’t it? My uniform wasn’t particularly forgiving, and it’s hard to imagine Colonel Phillips sending me into active combat knowing I was pregnant.” She looked down at her hands. “And I - I have a rather strong instinct to protect the baby myself. I don’t think I would have - ”

Steve squeezed her hand. “Hey, you obviously kept him safe, somehow. Or, she did. We just don’t know how.”

Tony shook his head. “I have to say, I knew you were good, but I’m starting to think you might actually be the best spy in the history of the world.”

There was a silence, and then Peggy turned to Bruce. “Is there anything else to eat in here? I’m starving.”

************

“Oh my God,” said Sharon Carter, staring at Pepper across a borrowed desk in the Stark Industries satellite branch on the outskirts of DC. She’d listened to the whole story, from Peggy’s unexpected appearance in the lab to the surprising results of Bruce’s DNA analysis, without saying a word. But her expressions had been fascinating, starting with surprised recognition and ending with slightly horrified astonishment.

Pepper leaned forward slightly. “Agent Carter - ”

“Sharon,” she said, slowly. “There seem to be a lot of Agent Carters in play here.”

Pepper smiled. “Sharon.” She watched the other woman’s face carefully. “Did - did you know anything about this? You looked...”

Sharon took a deep breath and visibly winced. “Just the time travel part.”

Pepper blinked. “You - what?”

Sharon twisted her fingers together, staring down at them. “A few years ago, when Aunt Peggy - when she felt her mind starting to slip, she told me about the incident with the time machine back in the war. She wanted someone who could - in case Howard had been right, and a version of herself had travelled forward in time...”

Of course, Pepper realized, with a jolt. If Howard Stark had thought it was theoretically possible, and if he’d told Peggy about it, she must have been keeping an eye out all along, for a time-travelling twin of her younger self to appear, suddenly, somewhere, sometime.

“I wasn’t sure it was… real,” admitted Sharon. “And even if it was, Aunt Peggy said there was only a small chance that it would have happened, and Howard had no idea how _far_ forward she would have gone. The settings on the time machine were all messed up during the fight, and he didn’t have all the data he needed to figure it out.”

“Huh,” said Pepper, eloquently.

“Yeah,” said Sharon, leaning forward. “But she didn’t tell me she was _pregnant_ when it happened. Or… any of the rest. I mean, it does explain a few things. A lot of things. But why didn’t she - especially after they defrosted Steve, wouldn’t she have thought I might like to _know_?” She looked more than a little betrayed.

Pepper put a hand on her arm. “Maybe she would have told you after that. Maybe she... forgot, before she could?” Pepper’s own grandmother had died after a long, ugly, battle with Alzheimer’s, and she found herself staring down at her own hands for a moment.

Sharon sighed. “Maybe.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “But God, this is going to be so awkward.” She opened her eyes again. “I’ve been spying on Steve for Director Fury,” she said, in a rush. “Posing as his neighbour, just - keeping tabs on him. Making sure he’s adjusting okay, not going too crazy, that kind of thing.”

Pepper’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God.”

Sharon nodded. “Yeah. I - I might even have flirted with him a little. Not - not seriously,” she hastily added, as Pepper’s eyes widened. “I’m not even - ” She rubbed the bridge of her nose.  “I took the assignment for Aunt Peggy’s sake. Fury was going to send _someone_ to keep tabs on him. I thought it would be better if it was someone who - ”  

Pepper nodded slowly. “I’m - I’m not sure Steve’s going to see it that way.”

“You think?” asked Sharon, both eyebrows raised. “God, I’ll be written out of his will before he even has a chance to write me in.” She looked suddenly mortified. “Not that I care about his money.”

Pepper squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I live with Tony Stark. I’m a pretty good judge of when somebody’s joking.” She leaned forward. “You don’t have to do this, Sharon. It’s totally unofficial, and you’re allowed to say no. Take some time. Think about it.”

Sharon shook her head. “No, I do have to,” she said slowly. “Aunt Peggy gave me something. To give to herself.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter serves as my contribution to Day 2 of Steggy Week 2k18 (When Timelines Collide). Considering that the first chapter of this story was written for Steggy Week 2k17, I think I've officially lapped myself. :)

Pepper Potts hadn’t become the CEO of Stark Industries by avoiding uncomfortable conversations, but as she ushered Steve and Peggy into her office that afternoon she found herself quite willing to be distracted by Peggy’s obvious curiosity about her surroundings.

“Did you ever see Stark Industries back in the ‘40s?” asked Pepper, curious herself.

Peggy nodded. “Yes, while I was in New York working on Rebirth - the project that gave Steve the serum." She looked around the office. "Mainly just the laboratories, though. Howard only really used his office for drinking, flirting with the typing pool, and changing his clothes. Sometimes all at once,” she added, with oddly fond exasperation.

“I never actually saw his office,” said Steve. “Just the labs, and that little office he used in the Brooklyn SSR base.”

“There was a great deal more wood panelling,” said Peggy, thoughtfully. “No view to speak of. Considerably more paper strewn about, and fewer electronic gadgets.” She tilted her chin at Dum-E, who was puttering around the edge of the room, dusting, part of a new experiment of Tony’s. “But the robot looks exactly like something Howard would have built.”

Pepper patted Dum-E fondly as she passed. “Tony built this guy. It’s a bit like having a big dog, with less barking and more beeping.”

“Less shedding too, I imagine,” said Peggy, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from Pepper’s desk. Steve sat down next to her as she considered Dum-E. “I have no idea whether it’s normal in this century to have a robot dusting one’s shelves,” she said, finally. “I have a great deal to catch up on.”

Pepper nodded. “Yes, it’s been an eventful 70 years.” She made a quick note on her phone as she sat down. “I’m sure Steve’s been giving you the crash course, but now that we know you’re here for good we should really get you set up so you can do your own research too.” She frowned. “And at some point you’re going to need to legally exist, which might actually turn out to be pretty complicated.”

Peggy nodded. “It had occurred to me.” Her lips twitched. “I don’t imagine there’s a standard government form for foreign nationals who’ve travelled unexpectedly through time, arrived with no identification other than military dog tags, and propose to coexist along with an older version of themselves.”

“No,” agreed Pepper. “We’re going to have to get creative. Although, the older version of you is an American citizen, so maybe that will help.” She smiled at Steve. “Maria Hill is going to either really love this or really hate this.”

“Probably both,” said Steve, thoughtfully. “She loves hating her job.”

Pepper smiled again. “Anyway, we’ll need to get these things in motion ASAP. I don’t know how long it’s going to take until you officially exist, but Bruce will be the first to agree that you should probably have your baby delivered by someone who doesn’t risk turning into the Hulk if things get stressful.”

“I quite like Dr. Banner,” said Peggy, “but I do take your point.” She glanced at the vase of flowers on the desk with an odd expression that Pepper couldn’t quite interpret. “It can’t possibly take that long, can it? I’d rather like to get some fresh air sooner than that.”

“It shouldn’t,” said Pepper. “But even if it does, I’m pretty sure we can get you outside sooner than that. Although,” she looked at Steve again, “we _will_ need to deal with the publicity angle.”

Steve sighed.

Peggy looked at Pepper with interest. “Oh, is he still famous? Hordes of young women sending him terribly shocking letters about what they would do if they got him alone?” She shot Steve a rather wicked look, and Pepper was amused to see the tips of Steve’s ears go red.

“In a way,” he said, uncomfortably, “only they don’t send letters anymore.”

“It could be a lot worse,” Pepper told him, then turned to Peggy. “Unlike Tony, Steve avoids the spotlight if he can, and he can usually get through his day-to-day life without attracting too much attention.” She sighed. “On the other hand, everyone has a smartphone these days, and if Captain America is spotted around town with an obviously pregnant mystery woman, it’s definitely going viral.”

Peggy blinked. “I understood about half of that.”

“Almost everyone has a camera with them all the time, and it doesn't cost anything to develop a picture,” said Steve. “People will take pictures of us together and put them on the Internet, and they’ll spread like the plague, and then nobody will leave us alone because they’ll think I’m the father of your baby. Which I am , but - ” Peggy nodded thoughtfully.

“So, we need to decide how to manage that,” said Pepper. “Do you want to try to stay in the background, which will be trickier, or do we just take the initiative and go public to try to stay ahead of the gossip? Often that’s the better way to go.”

Peggy was staring at the flowers again. She shifted sideways and a little backwards in her seat, looking a little nauseated.

“Have you given any thought as to what you might like to do, once you’re settled in?” asked Pepper, thoughtfully, watching her. “With your background, joining SHIELD would be an obvious choice, but...”

“...being in the public eye does tend to limit one’s usefulness as an undercover operative,” finished Peggy. “Although I suppose it will be quite some time before I’ll be cleared to do any fieldwork, regardless.” She was staring at her hands now, intertwining her fingers elaborately.

Steve tapped his fingers on the desk, thoughtfully. “Yeah… you’ll have to wait until after the baby’s born to do any fieldwork or intense physical training, but - Natasha’s an Avenger, and she can still pull off undercover missions, even after all the publicity she got during the Chitauri invasion. Clint too.”

Peggy sighed. “At any rate, I suppose I have a lot to learn before I’d have the slimmest hope of pulling off any kind of cover. I’m constantly reminded of the large gaps in my grasp of what to most people is likely common knowledge.”

“I just think you’ll have options,” said Steve, squeezing her elbow. “Even if you wind up as more of a public figure than you’d like.” Peggy smiled at him.

“You know,” Pepper said, suddenly, “depending on how your powers settle out after the baby’s born, you might actually be an excellent candidate for the Avengers Initiative. Not that I know anything about the criteria for that, of course,” she added, and Steve grinned.

“On that topic, Dr. Banner has run a few more tests,” Peggy said. “Aside from the enhanced hearing and healing, it appears that I’m also somewhat stronger and faster than I was. It’s hard to be certain, though. We didn’t want to push things too hard, with - with the baby.” She swallowed.

“Of course,” said Pepper. She leaned forward. “Speaking of which, are you all right? You look actually green.”

Peggy looked faintly embarrassed. “I’m afraid the baby seems to have taken a strong dislike to the scent of these flowers.” She inclined her chin towards the vase on the desk. “I thought I’d get used to it, but - ”

“Oh, I can move them,” said Pepper immediately, picking up the vase. “You should have said something sooner.” She looked around for somewhere to put them, then opened the door to her office and set them on her assistant’s desk.

When she came back in, Steve was looking at Peggy, a little concerned. “I’ll be fine in a minute or two now that they’re out of the room,” Peggy told him, impatiently. “Stop hovering.”

Pepper hesitated, then cleared her throat. “Well, I actually called you in for a reason other than discussing your publicity strategy and the mountain of paperwork you’re about to be buried in.” She looked between the two of them. “I talked to Sharon this morning.”

Peggy and Steve gave each other a wide-eyed look, just as Dum-E passed by in a waft of what Tony had assured Pepper was an environmentally friendly cleaning spray. Peggy and Pepper both sneezed.

Peggy took in a slow breath, holding herself very still. “And - did Sharon - ” she broke off and stood up quickly. “Damn it!”

“Bathroom’s in there,” said Steve, pointing, as Peggy hurried across the office, already gagging a little as the door swung shut behind her.

There was a silence. “God, I’m so sorry,” Pepper said, after a moment. “I should have - ”

Steve shook his head. “Not your fault. Even Peggy doesn’t usually know what’s going to set her off. And she never says anything, because she keeps thinking she can just push through.” He shrugged, eloquently. “Most of the time she can. She probably would have been fine if she hadn’t sneezed.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “I can see she’ll fit in perfectly with the Avengers.” She got up and filled a glass with water, handing it silently to Peggy when she opened the bathroom door a few minutes later.

Peggy accepted the glass, looking at Pepper somewhat awkwardly. “Thank you.”

“I have to say, Agent Carter” said Pepper, leaning against the doorframe watching her rinse out her mouth, “watching you is not making me eager to get pregnant anytime soon. Or possibly ever.” She leaned in to the bathroom and opened a drawer. “Toothbrush?”

Peggy raised an eyebrow at the neat row of toothbrushes in the drawer, unopened in their packaging. “Do people often need to clean their teeth while visiting your office?” she asked Pepper, slightly bemused.

“I just like to be prepared,” said Pepper, reaching past her into the drawer and handing her the toothpaste. “It’s what helps me survive the chaos of running a Fortune 500 company while living with Tony Stark and pretending I don’t know anything about SHIELD and the Avengers. God, it’s like herding cats.”

Peggy gave a genuine laugh, and Pepper grinned at her. “You know, when your counterpart was my age, she was running an international security agency _and_ keeping a lid on Howard Stark. You and I actually have a lot in common.”

Peggy nodded, thoughtfully. “I suppose we do,” she said. “Although I haven’t reached quite that level of responsibility as of yet.”

Pepper considered for a moment as Peggy opened the toothbrush. “You know nobody minds making little accomodations to help with the morning sickness, don’t you? We all already know you’re pregnant. You don’t have to pretend that - ”

Peggy sighed. “I know.” She pursed her lips. “But I generally prefer to meet my challenges head-on. The idea that I can’t even handle sitting near a vase of _flowers_ is rather difficult to accept.”

“Honestly I don’t think I’d be very good at it either,” admitted Pepper. She leaned back against the doorframe again. “You and I are both used to being the only woman in the room,” she said, after a moment.

Peggy visibly suppressed a gag at the first taste of the toothpaste, but managed to hold it together. “Yes,” she said, once she’d recovered. “I suppose that’s part of it.” She shrugged. “One makes adjustments as to what perceived weaknesses one is willing to admit to.”

Pepper nodded, watching Peggy brush her teeth. “I… I woke up this morning with terrible cramps,” she said, slowly. “I wasn’t expecting my period until tomorrow, and I got blood on my favourite pajamas, and the whole thing actually almost made me cry.”

Peggy blinked. “Oh. Have - have you tried soaking them in cold water?”

Pepper smiled as Peggy rinsed out the toothbrush and set it down beside the sink. “Yes. Crisis averted.” She raised her eyebrows. “I just thought - I thought maybe it would help if you weren’t the only one confessing to a biology-based problem that most men will never experience."

The corners of Peggy’s mouth turned up. “I suppose it does, a little.”

As they made their way back into the main part of the office, it occured to Pepper, with slight mortification, that Steve had enhanced hearing and had absolutely overheard the part about her period. But, it was Steve, and really, she was sure he’d had to pretend he hadn’t heard far worse.

At any rate, he didn’t give any indication that he’d overheard, just squeezed Peggy’s knee as she sat back down next to him. “Feeling better?”

“Yes,” said Peggy. “I should - I should eat something soon. An empty stomach seems to make things worse.”

“Luckily, I have a drawer for that,” Pepper said, cheerfully.

*****

There was a long silence as Pepper finished relating her conversation with Sharon. Steve, despite his attempt at a poker face, was clearly upset, but Pepper honestly thought Peggy looked a little like she was trying not to laugh.

Steve was the first to break the silence. “I wonder what she has for you?” he said to Peggy, with an admirable effort to sound casual. Pepper could easily see through it to the indignant anger beneath.

Peggy could too, and slid a comforting hand over his shoulder, coming to rest on his upper arm. “I have a theory, but I suppose we’ll find out for certain when we meet her.” The two of them met each other’s eyes in an unspoken discussion that made Pepper belatedly realize she should give them a moment alone to process.

“I’ll just - ” she started to say, but Peggy spoke at the same time, leaning in towards Steve and squeezing his arm.

“Oh darling, she was only doing her job. I’m quite certain that if I had been asked to run surveillance on my great-aunt’s beau who’d been frozen on ice for nearly seventy years, I’d have done it out of sheer curiosity if nothing else.”

“I know,” he said, “but - why the hell was Fury spying on me in the first place? And she - ” he sighed. “I thought my neighbor Kate was the only regular person I’d made any sort of connection with since I came out of the ice, and it turns out she was SHIELD after all. And not even named Kate. And Peg, she kept flirting with me. God, what if we’d - ”

Peggy nodded. “Yes, that part _is_ awkward.” She blew out a slow lungful of air. “Did... did you want to?” she asked, sounding like she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know the answer.

Steve shook his head. “No,” he said, simply. “I was still pretty stuck on you.”

“Well, then,” said Peggy, simply. They locked eyes again, and this time Pepper seriously worried that if she left the two of them alone she might come back to find everything swept off her desk and the two of them hastily rebuttoning their clothes. She wondered if they’d always been like this, or if it was some combination of pregnancy hormones and euphoric relief at finding they hadn’t lost one another after all.

Pepper cleared her throat. “You two would probably like a chance to discuss this on your own.”

They broke eye contact immediately. “Sorry,” said Peggy, a little pink. She frowned, turning her attention to Pepper. “Did Sharon seem - did _she_ take the flirting seriously?”

Pepper shook her head. “No, and she she looked relieved enough when she said so that I believed her. She was pretty mortified about the rest of it.”

Peggy’s lips twitched a little.

“It’s not funny!” said Steve.

“It is, a little,” said Peggy. “You must admit, it’s a rather Shakespearean way to meet your granddaughter.”

“You mean, betrayed by my own flesh and blood?”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, Hamlet. Your granddaughter didn’t know you were related either.”

“She lied to me, for months,” Steve retorted. “She pretended to be friendly, she flirted, she gained my trust. And the whole time, she was reporting everything back to Fury.”

Peggy’s voice rose too, suddenly dangerous. “You mean, she was doing her job. If you have a problem with spies, Rogers, you may want to seriously reconsider that marriage proposal.”

Pepper’s eyes widened.

“It isn’t the same thing,” Steve said, more quietly.

“It bloody well is,” retorted Peggy. “It’s just that, this time, you were the target.”

“You were spying against Nazis and Hydra. There was a war on. This is completely different.”

Peggy frowned at him. “I’m quite sure Director Carter didn’t simply stop doing intelligence work once the war was officially over. And you yourself were telling me that your colleagues are able to run undercover operations despite being Avengers. Do you think they’re completely truthful to the people they’re spying on?” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not angry at Sharon for spying. You’re angry at Fury for ordering her to spy on _you_. Don’t conflate the two.”

“You don’t always know what I’m thinking,” he snapped, standing up. “And I’m pretty damned sure you’d be singing a different tune if you were the one she’d been spying on.” He took a deep breath. “I need some air.” He nodded, slightly apologetically, to Pepper and left the office.

Peggy glared after him, breathing hard, then set her shoulders and turned back to Pepper. “I’m sorry,” she said, a little awkwardly. “Between one thing and another, we’ve given you quite a time this afternoon.”

Pepper reached across the desk and squeezed her hand. Peggy gave her a tiny smile, and they sat in silence for a moment or two. “So,” said Pepper, finally. “This probably isn’t the best time to ask, but did he really propose?”

Peggy huffed out a laugh. “Yes. As soon as we knew I wasn’t going back to 1945. Or, shortly thereafter.” She sighed. “We hadn’t meant to announce it just yet. I suppose that’s what we get for quarreling in front of others.” She took a cracker from the plate on Pepper’s desk, looked at it rather unenthusiastically, and popped it into her mouth.

“I won’t say a thing,” Pepper reassured her. She leaned forward. “But, since I know he asked, you can’t leave me hanging. Do we have a wedding to plan?”

Peggy sighed. “As long as the prospective groom decides he can bring himself to associate with a covert operative.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “You know it isn’t actually you or Sharon he’s mad at. He’ll realize it pretty quickly once he really thinks about it.”

“I’m rather annoyed with him, though,” said Peggy, darkly. She took another cracker, broke it in half between her finger and thumb. “I realize this isn’t easy for him. He feels personally betrayed. It’s just that - ”

Pepper nodded. “He just needs time to get used to the idea.” Peggy nodded too, and ate the cracker.

“It won’t be - we don’t want a big wedding,” she said, after a moment. “I suppose, as it turns out, we do have family, but that’s rather complicated, and most of our friends are - ” she took a breath and finished with a shaky smile. “At any rate, I hadn’t envisioned myself walking up the aisle in a white dress looking like I’d swallowed a football.”

Pepper squeezed her hand again, silently. There wasn’t much she could think of to say about the fact that her trip to the future meant Peggy had lost almost everyone she’d ever known, just as Steve’s had.

Peggy took a slow breath in through her nose. “Well, thank you. For everything. I should leave you to get on with herding the cats. I imagine they’ve gone rather feral this afternoon.”

Pepper inclined her head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Peggy. One corner of her mouth turned up. “In the spirit of sharing our biology-based difficulties, I will admit that I am planning to take a nap. Gestating a child is ridiculously exhausting.”

Pepper watched her as she left the office and crossed the outer workspace toward the elevator, then grinned to herself. Regardless of whatever other issues they had to deal with, she was pretty sure that when Steve came looking, it would end up being rather convenient that Peggy was already in bed.

 


End file.
